


Stolen Time

by GoblinCatKC



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21557869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoblinCatKC/pseuds/GoblinCatKC
Summary: Would you take control of this? Take control of me. Please. Just...just while I'm here. I just want to let go for awhile. I swear, it's really not that weird—
Relationships: Donatello/Leonardo (TMNT), Leonardo/Michelangelo (TMNT), Leonardo/Raphael (TMNT)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67





	Stolen Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written both for a request:   
> Leo wants to sub. Not just bottom, but sub. Raph doesn't understand. He is like, what does that even mean? They should be equals in the bedroom. He's not here force his shit on anybody. Raph is stubborn. But Leo is calm and convincing. (( Resolve it however you want! :D ))

Five minutes alone was hard enough to scrounge, let alone a whole half hour. From early morning training to late afternoon practice, their entire schedule was planned down to the minute by a life of physical training and ninjitsu practice, with a master dedicated to both a life of clan vengeance and yet also keeping his sons alive. 

If they had an evening free, they found time to steal food and things from the human world, collect old appliances and discarded tech, and raid the pharmacies for the pain pills that made street warfare a little more bearable. The nights where they actually fought, killed humans and satisfied Splinter's desire for revenge by one more drop of blood—these brought the greatest relief. They would patch each other up, forming a sewing circle of stitching skin or washing and bandaging wounds, setting broken bones and massaging out the bad blood of deep bruising, wincing and laughing as they recalled good moves and close calls. And the next day they would have free to themselves—to heal, to rest, to live their own lives.

And then they had to dodge their own siblings. Michelangelo, who was jealous of any time with his brothers, and Donatello, who never had enough time in the day to fix what lay broken, let alone to work on his own projects. Raphael couldn't understand why Leonardo kept offering to help Michelangelo steal comics from the shop or stayed in Donatello's lab for ages—serving as the faithful minion to the mad scientist. They had such scant time to themselves, and to give even more of himself...

So five minutes or half an hour—Raphael treasured stealing that time with Leonardo. Five minutes in his hammock, half an hour in his brother's room, always "meditating" or having a quick "chat." He figured that Donatello and Michelangelo both knew what was really happening, but he didn't care. As long as Splinter didn't. As long as he got that half an hour.

Which made the short time so much more galling when Leonardo insisted on wasting it.

"It's really not that weird—"

Raphael's look forced Leonardo to fall silent. 

"Is it 'cause I get pissed all'a the time?" Raphael demanded. "That I think half of what you say is half-baked and half-assed?"

"Just half?" 

Leonardo looked away as he said it, watching a drop of water slip from a leaking pipe and down the brick wall. It glimmered in the yellow light, the only unbroken bulb Donatello had left when the previous bulb blew. He figured Raphael preferred that, more like the streetlamps above them than the harsh fluorescent flickering down here.

"Yeah, like this," Raphael said. He sat straighter, rocking the hammock. "I don't like you setting yourself up as leader, and I don't like you wanting to set me up as one, neither."

Leonardo frowned. "I thought—"

"You seriously don't get it," Raphael sighed. "Shit, you can be so smart and so goddamn dense in the same moment, you know? I don't want it."

"Then..." Leonardo paused. "Why do you get so angry when we're—why'd you snap in the middle of everything yesterday?"

"For fuck's sake..." Raphael shut his eyes, exasperated briefly beyond words. "'Cause we were pounding them so hard, why the hell should we retreat? You keep hitting them hard but you never let us keep going through 'em—we had them on the ropes, and then you go and tell us to run away with our tails between our legs."

"Ten or twelve we can take," Leonardo said, "but there were more coming—and if any of them ever gets a photo—"

"Then we're Lock Ness Monsters, New York edition," Raphael said, but the heat in his voice was dying. It was an old argument, one that they had often, and one they could never come to any compromise on. He was too annoyed to argue. "Izzat why you want me to do that? So I quit backseat driving?"

"...no."

Leonardo sat very still, watching the drop hesitate on a crack in the stone, tremble, then continue again.

"I can't ask Don. He'd turn it into some really complex machine thing and one of his contraptions would probably end up killing me. Or you'd walk in on us and I'd die of that alone."

Raphael considered that for a moment, admitting the truth of it. Then he frowned.

"Wait...is that what you're doing in there with him all the time?"

Leonardo squirmed under that look, but he returned the glare evenly. "Not all the time. He really does need help moving things. I'm not so dumb I can't take orders. It's just...when we're done, he...I..."

He flushed slightly along his throat and he fell silent.

Raphael stared for a moment at the color on Leonardo's skin. His brother didn't often grow embarrassed. 

"And Mikey?" he had to ask. 

"Michelangelo..." Leonardo half-shrugged. "He's afraid of the dark."

Raphael almost asked 'so what'? The answer came before he could ask. Michelangelo was the bright spot under the ground, a whirlwind. Having to stay cooped up down here made him brighter, more manic, bouncing off the walls and growing more and more aware of being entombed. Of course Michelangelo needed a distraction in the dark.

"So you just wanna be the lair bicycle," Raphael said with a hard laugh.

Leonardo stiffened. The color on his throat rose even higher. His hand gripped the hammock so tight that the rope creaked.

Raphael had the sinking sensation that he'd said the wrong thing again.

When Leonardo silently stood and turned to the door, Raphael felt the silvery prick of panic, that he'd smashed something and that he might not be able to put it back together.

Leonardo was holding the door latch—they still hadn't found enough doorknobs to fully kit each one out. He had to waste time unlocking it—they had to lock it for fear that someone might come in, no matter how silent they were, and he was about to step out—

"Stop."

Leonardo froze. The light from the lair spilled in, and they heard the television playing through static, heard Donatello murmuring with Michelangelo.

Raphael swallowed. The moment dangled in the air like shattered glass, cracked but still holding together, and the smallest mistake would send it crumbling to the floor. And he could never hold anything together.

_Would you take control of this? Take control of me. Please. Just...just while I'm here. I just want to let go for awhile. I swear, it's really not that weird—_

"Close the door."

Leonardo hesitated.

"So you can yell at me here, too?" Leonardo's voice turned bitter. "All the insults you say, I have to listen in here—"

Raphael could have tried to defend himself, or insist that of course he wouldn't hurt him, that he didn't mean to say stupid things sometimes. But explaining or defending or insisting was not something that someone in control had to say. Taking control meant giving orders. Nothing more. Nothing less.

"Close the door," Raphael said, without any heat or emotion. Just a command.

Leonardo obeyed. And locked it again. And stood waiting, refusing to turn to face him.

"Take off your mask."

It was a strange command—they never felt like they had to remove anything to have sex. They barely wore anything. Leonardo's hands went to his mask, briefly hovered at the blue cloth, and then slid it off without untying it. He held it close, not sure what to do with it.

"Let it fall," Raphael said. "With your belt, too."

That took longer—buckles and straps and fasteners had to be undone. Sheaths had to be removed. But it all came off, dropped gently in a pile at his feet. Leonardo still hadn't turned, facing the door, suddenly awkwardly aware of his own body and not sure what to do with his hands. 

Raphael warmed to his role just a little, still all too aware that he could destroy this with one wrong word but now confident that Leonardo would obey.

"Come kneel in front of me."

Eyes downcast, completely reddened, Leonardo silently dropped to his knees before him. At that height, there was no doubt to Raphael's intention. His knees slightly spread as he leaned back in his hammock. Sitting sideways like this, he rested on the balls of his feet, keeping himself steady in front of his brother.

"This stays in here," Raphael said. "Not out there. Not this. Got it?"

Leonardo nodded once, still unable to face him. 

"You'll do everything I say?" Raphael asked. 

His mouth parted, but nothing came out. Leonardo nodded again.

"Then say it," Raphael ordered. "I wanna hear it."

He had to hear it. This was so alien that he had to have it repeated. Had to hear it for sure. Leonardo's reply came in a shaking whisper.

"...I'll do anything you say." Leonardo paused. "In here."

Raphael nodded once, partly disbelieving, partly confident. In response to his gesture, Leonardo leaned forward and took him in his mouth. There were soft, familiar sounds they were both used to, familiar sensations, and they both reassured themselves that things hadn't changed so much. This was the usual way they passed a few stolen minutes. Only now the silence was broken only by Raphael's orders. He thought he could probably have simply gestured for everything, but hearing Leonardo's answering obedience was something that he discovered he enjoyed. 

Time passed too quickly. Raphael felt a sting of jealousy when Leonardo left, heading either to Donatello's lab or Michelangelo's room. He wondered briefly if they had the same arrangement with him, lab assistant or therapy turtle, but he didn't think so. Leonardo wouldn't have been so hesitant with him if they did.

This thing between them was for him alone. In a cramped lair chiseled out of the human world where everything seemed to want him dead, this little arrangement was his alone. And he had managed not to break it. He felt like he'd stolen something fragile, caught it in the instant that it began to break. He imagined he might be able to mend it properly, if he stole enough time to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> also written as a promise to respond to flames with new fic of the "wrong" pairing.


End file.
